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Moderation in everything, including moderation

brunson

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I'm getting sick of all the finger pointing, bickering and remonstrations about forum etiquette that has sprung up here in the past several months. It seems like I spend more time looking at this person telling that person they're doing something wrong and three other people telling the first that there's nothing wrong with what the original poster did. Half the threads going on right now seem to be 3/4 off topic discussions about whether a post should have gotten bumped or that someone should have used the search function and it is frankly starting to make me consider avoiding the site completely.

How would the administrators of the forum feel about making it a formal guideline that reprimanding other posters is a right reserved for forum moderators. I'd very much like to see it documented that public comments on netiquette are considered just as much of an offense as any other of the minor infractions I see starting these mini bickering matches. There's a report button on every post, if someone is guilty of a major infraction or a series of minor ones, that should be the mechanism employed rather than derailing the entire conversation with off topic comments on forum policy. A PM is far more appropriate for letting a newbie know that they're on the fringe of accepted behavior and blatant disregard of policies can be reported.

That's my opinion, how do others feel about this proposal?
 
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panyan

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masterofthebass

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I agree, that the sense of superiority has gotten out of hand here. This forum should be about cube discussion, and useful ones at that. There is absolutely no point in naysaying others publicly.
 

Jason Baum

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I also completely agree, and that's the main reason why I don't post much here anymore.

When I first started cubing and was trying to get faster, I was at first very intimidated to talk to faster cubers and ask them for help. But everybody was very friendly with me, both online and in person, even though I was asking questions that they had probably heard dozens of times and were probably sick of answering as well. At my first competition, when I was still averaging in the 30s, I couldn't believe at how nice everybody was, even though they were all so much faster than me. Guys like Macky, Chris Hardwick, Ryan Patricio, Quinn Lewis, Ian Winokur, were all so willing to help out and give advice for me to get faster. It made me feel like I fit right in with the community, even though I wasn't nearly as good as them, and inspired me to get faster so that I could one day compete on the same level as them.

If I would have gone to that competition and people were rude to me when I asked questions, I honestly probably wouldn't have kept up with cubing like I have because I wouldn't have wanted to be a part of the community. Is it really that big of a deal if a new cuber comes on the forum and asks for help on their F2L? Or is that such a huge offense that people have to call the new cuber lazy and tell them to google it. Do you think that's going to make the new cuber want to come back and get better? Think about where you were when you were first starting off. I know if that were me I would probably just ignore the forum and end up quitting cubing entirely. I guess I'm glad I started cubing four years ago when the community was actually friendly.

I don't mean to call out anybody specific, but I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while now.
 

Waynilein

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I also completely agree, and that's the main reason why I don't post much here anymore.

When I first started cubing and was trying to get faster, I was at first very intimidated to talk to faster cubers and ask them for help. But everybody was very friendly with me, both online and in person, even though I was asking questions that they had probably heard dozens of times and were probably sick of answering as well. At my first competition, when I was still averaging in the 30s, I couldn't believe at how nice everybody was, even though they were all so much faster than me. Guys like Macky, Chris Hardwick, Ryan Patricio, Quinn Lewis, Ian Winokur, were all so willing to help out and give advice for me to get faster. It made me feel like I fit right in with the community, even though I wasn't nearly as good as them, and inspired me to get faster so that I could one day compete on the same level as them.

If I would have gone to that competition and people were rude to me when I asked questions, I honestly probably wouldn't have kept up with cubing like I have because I wouldn't have wanted to be a part of the community. Is it really that big of a deal if a new cuber comes on the forum and asks for help on their F2L? Or is that such a huge offense that people have to call the new cuber lazy and tell them to google it. Do you think that's going to make the new cuber want to come back and get better? Think about where you were when you were first starting off. I know if that were me I would probably just ignore the forum and end up quitting cubing entirely. I guess I'm glad I started cubing four years ago when the community was actually friendly.

I don't mean to call out anybody specific, but I've wanted to get this off my chest for a while now.


The reason for the change in attitude is the fact that the cubing community is rapidly growing. Back then, there were so few cubers that everyone wanted to have new people join the community. Nowadays, cubing is already quite popular and rapidly growing, so we can afford to "filter out" the lazier newbies and only let the good ones in.

It might be far-fetched, but take as an example the community surrounding any sport. If you went to a football match and asked a player about the proper way to kick a ball, do you think he'd stop what he was doing and take 10 minutes to explain it to you?
 

F.P.

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I don't think it's offensive to tell someone who is new that the question has already been asked certain times and he could easily find it with the search function or google; it's more about the way it's said/written.

I mostly just see comments like:

"try google"; "are you blind? there is a search function" etc. (and then probably this :rolleyes: smilie).
People who post comments like that are obviously too lazy to help a new member/starter out by explaining that there is a search function etc. (on a nice way) but they often have time to make fun of spelling mistakes.

I just don't see the point in that.

I don't post here a lot but I often rush through a few threads and some users really seem to be very arrogant.
 

Escher

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stefan pochmanns style of helping people is definitely my favourite. instead of ranting at people to use the search function (the vast majority of the time ;)), he attempts to get people to think about things that they have done wrong, or might be able to work out for themselves. which is fantastic - the person learns to research for themself, or get better at intuiting parts of the cube, therefore improving their abilities as a cuber, and their initiative, meaning they ask less 'obvious' questions in the future.
although, this attempt is often either ruined by someone explicitly explaining it (usually what i do...) or being flamed for not already knowing where to find it.
and if people HAVE to point out the existence of the search function, cant they offer some advice on how to actually use it? for example, typing 'type a' (without the quotation marks) brings no results - you have to be savvy enough to realise that you need quotation marks, which i know i wasnt - i only stumbled across this info in a thread, only ever having used the function once.
 

Lord Voldemort

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"Is it really that big of a deal if a new cuber comes on the forum and asks for help on their F2L? Or is that such a huge offense that people have to call the new cuber lazy and tell them to google it. Do you think that's going to make the new cuber want to come back and get better? Think about where you were when you were first starting off. I know if that were me I would probably just ignore the forum and end up quitting cubing entirely. I guess I'm glad I started cubing four years ago when the community was actually friendly."

Very true.
If you look at it that way, there's no point in a forum really, anything of use could be found in solely the wiki of the site and google. When I first came here I did notice a lot of "use the search function" (more so than other forums anyway). But I do think you're making the problem seem bigger than it is. While there is a bit of an obsession with rules, I find that most of the people here are nice and encouraging. Some people are overly sarcastic and mean, but that's limited to a few individuals.

stefan pochmanns style of helping people is definitely my favourite.
lol... I don't know if you've seen it, but there was this one thread where someone asked what to do if an edge was inserted wrong in the f2l, and then he said something about what you would do if your car was in the wrong way in your garage.

It was funny, the whole thread turned into a discussion about cubes as cars and garages, and at the same time helped without being rude.
 
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I'm gonna have to agree, it gets somewhat annoying...although I think it is fully justified when the cuber is experienced and they post something that has already been posted before and you tell them to use the search bar. Other than something similar to that it's just plain mean :(
 

qqwref

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Telling newbies off serves a purpose. If you have a community where anyone is allowed to bump old threads, ask questions that are already on the most recent page, double or triple post without adding any new information, and so on, without any consequences, those kind of things just balloon until every new user does them. In my opinion that kind of stuff seriously degrades the quality of the forum: if I look at the most recently posted topics, I expect (and hope) to see new and interesting topics, not something from 2005 or something like "I learned the entire beginner method but I can't get sub-1, what am I doing wrong?" in the Speedcubing section. Make a speedcubing tutorial/FAQ sticky or something. Obvious questions should have readily available answers, and it would be very easy if you could just say "read the sticky!". Most people suck ass at searching.

On the other hand, notice that it is not actually against the rules to do things like bumping extremely old topics (which really bothers me if it is just saying "me too" or "that's cool"). You can tell that some things are considered to be a serious breach of forum etiquette but aren't against the rules - maybe they SHOULD be. I would not be against a 24-hour "don't make any posts" ban for people who bump topics older than a few months without adding anything. I feel like the moderators aren't doing much about people who break important (but unwritten rules), and unless I can trust someone else to deal with it I feel like I have to tell them off myself.
 

Kian

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I wholeheartedly agree with brunson, mike, jason, dan, et al.

Frankly, the netiquette police are getting out of control here. I think it's time that we all just stop and relax. If someone bumps an old thread its not crazy to suggest that "hey maybe next time try and do this instead" but berating people, some of whom could be as young as 10 or so, is a bit ridiculous.

Its too easy to hide behind the shroud of the internet. Please start to treat people the way you would to their face.

Happy cubing,
Kian
 

blah

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What's morally/netiquette-ly wrong with bumping old threads?

Note: This really is just an innocent question out of curiosity. I always knew it was "wrong" judging from the amount of flaming a noob gets when he/she bumps old topics, but I never really knew why...
 

pjk

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I also agree. I find it quite ridiculous at some of the posts that are posted here, and I've been thinking of ways to prevent it, but haven't had any success yet.

When someone asks a "dumb" question, it is best to give some guidance on where to find the answer and/or give them the answer. It seems people instead say "use the search function". Another thing that I see is people getting upset for bumping threads. As much as I have seen it, and as much as I have expressed my opinion on it, people don't seem to understand. I see nothing wrong with bumping an old thread, pretty much ever. Some people do bump really old threads with nothing much to say, but I don't see that any differently than replying to a recent thread with nothing much to say.

Creating a new thread about a topic that already exists is sometimes a good thing, because it gives you fresh inputs from new people. I do hate it when people simply make a thread like "Where can I learn 4x4 BLD?", with the message saying "see title for what I need". Those are pretty annoying because that kind of information is right below where they posted it.

I would like to ask: what you guys suggest to fix this? Mass emails? Warnings for these posters? Reviewing new accounts? Suspensions?
 

qqwref

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I still think the best solution would be to make a handful of stickies, one explaining what people should and shouldn't do (i.e. telling people to post basic questions in the beginner section, and not to bump topics that are older than a few weeks or whatever), and one in each section with a basic FAQ (how do you do a cube BLD? what's the most popular method? where can I learn it? etc) and a list of useful websites. That's the only real way to ensure users know how to behave without being annoying.
 
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